QBARS - v27n2 ARS Annual Meeting

A. R. S. Annual Meeting Pittsburgh, Pa
May 24-27, 1973

The Pittsburg annual meeting will be headquartered at the Pittsburgh Hilton Hotel. Registration will be Thursday evening, May 24, and Friday morning, May 25. The Great Lakes Region Rhododendron Show will open Saturday afternoon in the Hilton lobby and continue through Sunday.

The early registration fee is $49. This covers the events of Friday and Saturday and includes lunch and dinner on Friday, lunch and dinner on Saturday, and two cocktail parties as well as the boat trip down the Ohio River to Old Economy, the outstanding historical museum in Western Pennsylvania.

The trip down the Allegheny River on a stern-wheeler is a trip into the middle of the last century when the celibate Harmony Society made Old Economy the leading industrial community of the West. More than 6-1/2 acres of dwellings, shops and communal buildings have been preserved and furnished.

Some changes have been made in the agenda as given in the January Bulletin. The U. S. Steel Corporation, through its president Mr. E. B. Speer, is giving a cocktail party in its new headquarters at the "Top of the Triangle" Friday evening. This new 64 story building has just been completed. It is the tallest building between New York and Chicago and has an unequalled view of the city, the three rivers and the surrounding area.

After cocktails; the group will descend to the main concourse of the U. S. Steel Building for dinner in the Canteena.

Speaker for the Saturday morning educational session will be H. Lincoln Foster, whose garden "Millstream" is in Falls Village, Conn. His topic will be "Dwarf Rhododendrons and Alpine Plants."  Mr. Foster is a well known Alpine plant specialist. He operates a nursery which specializes in heath, heather, dwarf rhododendron and the like. Until 1963, except for a brief interlude of four years as experimental horticulturist for Great Mountain Forest in Norfolk, Conn., Mr. Foster's vocation was education, teaching English, Latin and Earth Science in private and public secondary schools. Even during those years, however, his avocation was horticulture and botany. Since his retirement from teaching he has been able to devote full time to these interests.  Together with Mrs. Foster, he has been a garden consultant and designer and has given lectures and courses in various phases of gardening and conservation.

In addition to writing several English text books, Mr. Foster has written articles for horticultural and conservation publications. He contributed the chapter "Ferns in the Garden" for Boughton Cobb's "Field Guide to the Ferns," one of the Peterson Field Guide series, illustrated by Mrs. Foster. His own book, "Rock Gardening - A Guide to Growing Alpines and other Wildflowers in American Gardens," was published in 1968.

Mr. Foster is a member of many horticultural, botanical and conservation organizations and is a past president of the American Rock Garden Society of which he is still a director. He was a recipient of the Florens DeBevoise Memorial Award presented by the Garden Club of America and has received awards of merit from the Federated Garden Club of Connecticut and the American Rock Garden Society.

Mr. Foster became a member of the American Rhododendron Society in 1947. He is a charter member of the Connecticut Chapter of A.R.S.

After the banquet Saturday evening, ARS members may attend the '3 Rivers Arts Festival', one of Pittsburgh's most outstanding annual events. The Festival is held in an area located just out of the Hilton lobby. The Arts Festival involves demonstrations by 1,000 artists of painting, sculpture, crafts, music and dance. Special musical entertainment is also planned Saturday evening at the Festival.

Dr. August E. Kehr discusses the objectives of Sunday's program, 'Symposium on the Hybridizing of Rhododendrons' in the article following which also outlines the topics and chairmen for the program.

An alternate Sunday program will be available if a sufficient number express interest. This will be a trip to the Allegheny Mountains to visit "Fallingwater", a residential design which is an architectural triumph. The residence was built by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1936 for the late Edgar J. Kaufmann. Wright cantilevered the living room and bedroom levels in layered masses over the waterfall, complementing the horizontal weight of the rock and water below. Considered one of Wright's clearest successes, the house is world-famous. Lunch will be provided and the group will be back to the Pittsburgh Hilton by 4 p.m.